By Colleen Ludgate

While the site was interesting, neither Ericson nor Jeremy should have done any design work and as a result, the experience was both difficult and hard to use.

After languishing in obscurity due to the poor user experience, Widhadh Waheed (Jeremy’s wife and business partner) decided to take it further, adding several more categories and doing a site-wide redesign in 2005. The community began to thrive, and as members signed on and built lasting relationships with each other, the site’s offering broadened to incorporate more social features like private messaging, photo sharing, and friend lists.

Nearly eight years later, FunAdvice hosts twenty-six active categories turning out over 225,000 answered questions to date, with that number rising steadily on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, as of May 2009, FunAdvice was rated on comScore as the second fastest growing (second only to Twitter, which was receiving more TV mentions than any other internet company at the time), and the 20th largest social network on the World Wide Web, overall.

Aside from the critical redesign and social features, the site has had a few key wins that helped drive its steadily growing success. In 2007, FunAdvice had the honour of hosting Mandy Moore as a celebrity Advisor. Ms Moore participated by answering questions from our members and it was a thrill for many to be able to communicate with a real celebrity one-on-one. Later on, FunAdvice was included as the subject of an article in the New York Times, the largest newspaper in the USA which then lead to the president, Jeremy Goodrich, being quoted in the Wall Street Journal.

FunAdvice has a policy of tolerance in regards to all religions, cultures, preferences, etc. Although the number of staff at FunAdvice is relatively small for the size of its user base, they remain interactive with the site and the users, taking the time to deal with each and every member on an individual basis with the help of many great volunteers called “Advisors”. In this way, issues are resolved quickly and members have the security of knowing that they have a place where they can feel safe to talk about their issues, or even just chat with other members, without the risk of being taunted or abused, as is prevalent on many other social networking sites.

In May of 2010, FunAdvice took a huge leap and completely revamped the site. The new design incorporated a status update board, video uploads, interest categories, and a point system that pays out in actual US dollars. It was six months of long hours for the programming team, but the newly designed site was embraced by the FunAdvice community. Since then, there has also been the addition of a section for status updates – that now ubiquitous feature on both Facebook and Twitter that enables you to share what’s on your mind with … well – anybody. While still an advice site at its core, the status updates have been a massive success, growing four times faster than the question volume since the relaunch.

The speed of having a question answered on FunAdvice obviously fluctuates depending on the time of day, but most questions are usually answered within a few minutes, if not quicker, and the “No Question Unanswered” campaign ensures that each and every question will be answered. The only exception may be for the questions that are posted in the Mature Content section of the site, which requires you to access a separate page from the main message board so that people don’t have to view some rather explicit material. This section maintains the cleanliness of the Questions board and, frankly, makes everyone feel just a little more comfortable to be on the site.

FunAdvice may not yet be as popular as competing sites like Yahoo Answers, Answerbag, or Blurtit but the mix of social interactions available have made the site much loved by its growing community of fans.

About the author

Colleen Ludgate is Community Manager at FunAdvice.

www.funadvice.com